AgriMarketing Your AgriBusiness

Many agribusinesses have a common problem: they are good producing a crop or offering a service, but bad at being a business. Often there’s a lack in the essential tools necessary to run a professional business. This being said—here are some tips for improving the business side of your agribusiness . . . Run your agribusiness like a business: This means you need to establish set hours of operation and stick to them. The fastest way to lose customers is to not keep the hours you set, or to change them without notice. Even worse is to hang a sign on your door announcing you’ll be back in a couple of hours, or closed for the day. This is both rude and unprofessional. Being consistent with the hours of operation you set and advertise is an essential marketing practice and a basic business tool. Similarly you need to have established return and customer service policies. Standing behind your products and services is another essential practice in marketing your business. Purchase good office equipment: Any business in today’s marketplace needs a good computer, Internet service provider, and a printer. Trying to look professional without the capability to type and print out letters and other correspondence, send email, and maintain a web page and/or social media accounts like Facebook and Twitter is impossible. And all of these tasks require a good computer. As for printers, buy the best you can afford. Doing so will pay off in the long run as your printed materials will look more crisp and professional. Purchasing one that also copies is worth its weight in gold as it will save you having to run to the office supply store or library to make copies. Have a business phone/line: I still prefer a landline telephone system with a good answering machine or voice mail for a business office. Dedicating a phone line/cell phone number to your operation is essential to doing business with the public. This said, it is imperative that you also have a recorded voice mail message (or answering machine) with the name of your business and hours of operation. Often seasonal businesses will turn these things off during the winter. This is a big mistake—because callers will think they either have a wrong number or that you have gone out of business. Even if you don’t plan to return calls during your off-season—at least keep your recorded message on—telling potential customers when you’ll re-open and thanking them for their business during the previous season. Your phone message should also be updated throughout the season to let customers know when various crops are in-season, etc. Cell phones, while wonderful, can still be inconsistent regarding service and retrieval of messages. Having a fax machine is not a bad idea, although many businesses choose to email correspondence these days. In addition, buy a good calculator for use in both your daily business operations, as well as for when you sell to the public. Invest in professionally printed letterhead, envelops, business cards, and sales receipts: An attractive business card is invaluable. The first rule with business cards is to never make them yourself; they will always look homemade. Use a commercial printer—the more professional looking your card, the more professional your business looks to potential customers. With several online/mail-order printers (that do a great job for very affordable prices; please see the resources chapter in this book) there is no reason to think you can’t have business cards printed. Make sure to include the name of your business, street address, phone number, and email address and website address (if you have a web page). If you are open to the public then you might want to include your hours, as well. Listing hours, however, will outdate your card if they change before you use all of your cards. And if you offer several products/services you might want to print these on the backside of your card; never want to put too much on the front of a card as it will look cluttered. Likewise, if your business requires you to write hard copy correspondence then you want to have a nice letterhead and envelops. Again, include the pertinent information like your address, phone number, and email and website addresses. Forgo hours of operation—especially if they vary throughout the year. You can always include your hours of business in the body of your letters if necessary. Professionally printed sales receipts/invoices—with the name of your business, etc., are also nice to have and another means of advertising your business. Customers keep them for tax purposes and when they pull them out at tax time, they are reminded of your business.